


the head & the heart

by alluran



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-14 02:51:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9156376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alluran/pseuds/alluran
Summary: Her soul is there beside his.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: once upon a time, a small one really loved her vhs tape of Pete’s Dragon (original 1977 film) and, more importantly, when she got older, one of the songs she used to think as kind of boring became something more. winding up as a secret track on the rough draft of a shallura playlist. weirdly coincidental, I swore I didn’t send in the prompt.  
> prompt: lighthouse (this was supposed to be part of the 12 days of shallura, but I regrettably had to take a step back for personal things.  
> rating: general audiences/k+  
> warning: none

She’s there, the waiting star to call him home - welcoming him from battle or coaxing him from the shadowed, inky pools of drowning dreams, and anchoring him in the present and onto their future with certainty. Offering her home as his and long, strong fingers that hook at his elbow or brushing through the sweat-slick, white strands from his forehead when the days are good or bad and increasingly just plain weird for what a human’s used to.

She teaches him languages, simple terms and phrases to navigate the frontiers of friendly planets and stars, and even when to curse viscerally to those that are anything but (much to Keith and Pidge’s curiosity).

Her breath crackles over the comm links and too many times does he catch himself closing his eyes and listening. Everything stilling - battle or training - and somehow, the chatter between Pidge and Keith and Lance riling Keith and Hunk checking them back into focus, falls away. He catches a hitch of amusement on her end.

A huff of laughter that’s checked back too soon and makes her sound light years younger.

Light years happier.

Freer.

When they trail through her halls, scuffed up and sweaty with a tiredness that seeps into their bones, she is there. They were wonderful and strong and coming so far, setting her hand on Lance’s shoulder and meeting Keith’s eye when she tells them how _proud_ she is. Her voice is breathy, but her touch is sure when she takes her turn with all of them - her shriek of laughter when Lance giddily lifts her up in what he’s sure she assumed was going to be a short hug. He hasn’t known the others as long as Keith, but he could have told her from day one that none of them ever did anything half away, _definitely_ not support. More of her hair falls from a precarious bun, streaking like a comet’s tail as it fell down her back as Lance spins them around.

“Fluid like the water, listen and your flight will be easy. You’re improving - when you aren’t showing off.”

Shiro’s breath hitches in his throat when he realizes what she’s doing. Anxiety and dread and excitement and energy coil in his belly as she steps away from Lance’s hold after successfully turning his unending, lanky confidence shy and his ears red. He can _hear_ Keith gulp from where he’s standing when she steps to him and the look of vulnerable confusion on his face is _priceless_ when she slaps her palm against the plate on his shoulder, knocking him back a step.

“Temperament is not always a weakness, you’re channeling it better, but don’t let it cloud your mind.”

In the same way, she moves to Hunk (teasingly rapping her knuckles against his breastplate - “Steady and strong, but find your surety. You were not meant to be counted out, do not let anyone dismiss you, least of all yourself. Demand to be heard.”) and Pidge (ruffling the uneven cut of her hair - “Our biggest surprise of all. Your mind is sharp, but let’s make your close combat sharper still.”)

Pidge grins, elbowing Lance in the side. “You mean, _electrifying_?”

Keith and Hunk groan, Lance is nothing short of beaming as Allura moves forward. Like the measured fall of dominoes, she reaches him and his team trickles from the room for the showers and Coran sweeps from the entryway casting a thought over his shoulder about doing a scan on the castle and each defense and maybe tinkering with a few codes so he ‘ _might be a bit yet’._

At least, that’s what broken pieces he happens to catch over the rushing, crashing waves in his ears when her palm gently brushes over his chest plate. Her long fingers stretch and span out from the center of the ‘v’ marked proudly on his armor, her eyes following the movement as a small smile tucks itself into the corner of her mouth.

“The decisive head.”

She doesn’t immediately give him corrections. If she hasn’t prepared one, he has a list as long as her arm at the ready. None of the words come together in his mouth, instead his hand reaches - cool fingertips just brushing over the trim bone of her wrist when he realizes he had almost placed the Galra prosthetic over hers. Shiro jolts, jerking back a step from the force of it, yanking back his hand.

“ _Sorry_ , I-”

Her eyes spark and he’s tucked securely back into the safe harbor as she takes his right hand and places it securely over hers on his chest. “It does not scare me, you _won’t_ hurt me.”

Derisively, he thinks she holds more assurance of that than himself.

Allura is his compass and lighthouse.

His captain and…

_“Allura.”_

She squares her jaw, but her eyes are warm and her smile soft, the tightness in his muscles ebb as his hands run from her wrists to the crook of her elbow, cradling her arms loosely. He’s going to say it, he’s going to tell her. 

One day.

His breath catches in his throat when her eyes shine and refract light and colors he has no name for. Shiro ducks his head, shifting his weight. On the edges of his vision, interspersed with the long, white strands of his hair, she peeks - pulling him in closer until she’s cradling him the same way he has her.

“I know.”

She is the Northern star his world does not have mapped out, guiding him through the haze of pain and clouded nightmares of his past and challenging him - even when he’s at the fringes of his patience and sanity, grappling to keep four wily teenagers under his orders as a Galra ship is zipping past his scope, a tiny blip quickly falling out of range. Even when he swears he won’t do this, it’s messy and complicated and he’s not the same person and neither is she. He’d rather lose the other arm before jeopardizing Voltron or her because some part of him still insists upon being _so_ _human_ he thinks the pain of it will split him in two.

“ _You_ know too, Shiro.” Allura takes his hands, cradling them as if he might break, and moves them up, until they’re at her shoulders and up further still until the rough pads of his fingers on one hand ghost over her jaw and the other smooths over the fine hairs at the base of her neck.

Her arms encircle his waist, her head dropping to rest against his chest plate.

He knows this part - where the choppy, dark, dark sea glitters in the light rotating in a high tower, washing the familiar coast line in a yellow glow and he knows which way to more forward in. He loosens her hair, falling over her shoulders and weaving between his fingers when he brushes them over the hairline at her neck. Shiro traces the curve of her jaw, skimming his thumb over the high point of her cheekbone. Her arms raise, winding up to his shoulders to pull him the rest of the way into her. He hopes for a day they can repeat this - without his armor, where he can feel the warmth of her touch to memorize it. 

For now, he doesn’t dare move, too afraid he’ll break the spell, this tiny bubble of impossible time in the far reaches of space where she pulls him in incredibly closer and so agonizingly slow. He feels his heart skip like it used to when he was back at the Garrison, making a name for himself inside a cramped cockpit.

It’s her mouth barely touching his and then, everything tilting and realigning when her mouth presses firmly against his, slotting in a way that has his nerves zinging when she holds onto him for dear life and traces the movement of his smile with her own. She pulls away only far enough to speak - close enough that her words still catch on his lips.

“The decisive head, strong and compassionate, selfless in the most _vexing_ way. The words do not have to come now or tomorrow, you will find them when you’re able. The heart that you hold is patient.”

Her presses the flat of his palm between her shoulder blades like a promise, bringing himself back to her.


	2. like starlight through a veil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they’re both just children in love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rating: k/general audiences

“And what is this, Takashi?”

He made a show of flinching and squeezing one eye shut when she tugged at the longer section of hair that fell over his eyebrows and had grown to ghosting over the bridge of his nose - as if having her long, strong fingers curled gently around the tuft of hair was anything _but_ everything to him. His felt his smile tip up on the one side and saw her eyebrows raise in turn, her tell that she had caught onto his own.

“Hair, I think you’re vaguely familiar with such a physical trait.”

 _“You,”_ She tugged further on his hair, making his head tilt down. “Are awful.”

“I have been informed on more than one occasion that I’m the worst,” he chuckled, the sound fading into a comfortable hum when her fingers slid through the length of his bangs and came back up to carefully sweep them back with the rest of his hair. As her hand moved farther back and his hair fell back over his face, he leaned into her touch. “You’ll have to be more specific if I even have a shot at somehow answering.”

“It’s not very sound. Do people on Earth often have strange haircuts?”

He opened his eyes, not having remembered he closed them to begin with. “It tends to be a rite of passage.”

“And what great passage were you coming upon?”

“None,” He shrugged playfully, smirking, “I just thought it looked cool.”

“Hm…” She stepped back, tilting her head one way and then the other as she studied him with her hand on her chin. “I still do not get it.”

He laughed, loud and full, as he stepped closer to her. “Neither do _these_.” He wound his fingers around the soft curl that seemed to protectively frame her eyes and marks. “Are they common?”

Allura leaned away from him, but didn’t try to remove the calloused pads of his fingers grazing over her cheek. She didn’t bat an eye when his knuckles knocked against her earring. “Sometimes they can be. My father had straight hair, so they didn’t curl as much into his face. When he began to grow his hair longer, they simply fell flat against his cheeks. There were different ways to wear them or to style them if you wished for them to do something other than the way one’s hair naturally lays.”

“Did you ever change yours?”

She flicked her hand over the hair on the other side of her cheek. “I’ve only kept them short while I grew the rest of my hair out. I never felt the urge to do something different - though, it was very common on Altea to constantly evolve your appearance.”

“I don’t know, I kind of liked the look you had going on when the mice fixed it.” Shiro pulled the lock of hair down toward her jaw, letting it go to watch it spring up and curl itself back into place under her eye.

Her cheeks lit up, her markings glowed a brighter pink, making the curls of white hair stand out starkly against the color sweeping across the dark color of her skin. “I-I- You see it was-,” Her mouth helplessly opened and shut a few more times before she squared her shoulders and jutted her chin up. “I won’t short the mice for their variety of talent, we had fun, thank you very much.” Allura reached back up, yanking at his hair again. “Maybe, if you ask nicely, they can get your hair into some semblance of order, but you know, they’re very busy and-”

He rested his hand on her cheek, his fingertips sliding comfortably into the strands of her hair. “I like it…” Shiro ducked closer to her, brushing his nose against hers. He was marginally impressed with himself to keep his eyes from crossing when he continued to look into her eyes (Who could blame him?). “Whichever way _you_ like it.”

She closed the distance between them, swift and graceful in a way that never failed to have his mind reeling in her electric flash of movement. Allura smiled against his mouth and he couldn’t really find it in himself to put any real disappointment in it having lasted in the time to shut his eyes and open them again. Her words were hard to catch with the way her lips brushed against his when she spoke. 

“Your hair could still use a trim, it’s starting to tickle my nose.”

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: admittedly, this got heavy handed fast and sort of spun out of control. but if you’ll kindly allow me, I would appreciate it. while the text may be overwhelming and imperfect, it was greatly cathartic.


End file.
